Getting To Know Your Chromebook’s Desktop

When it was a baby, Chrome OS was different. It was born without a desktop. For operating systems, it was a weird thing. Everyone bullied Chrome OS saying it didn’t look cool, because everyone else had a desktop with a stylish wallpaper on top of it (btw, why do you call it a wallpaper and not a table cloth, because it is on a”desktop” ? )

Chrome OS is mostly just a browser. People knew this fact but still felt uncomfortable because they felt locked inside a browser without no place to move around. This was mainly because there was no desktop (again)

Chrome OS desktop is similar to the normal desktops that we see around. It is slightly different too. Let’s take a look at its features.

You can right click and change wallpaper

You can select from pictures available in Chrome OS or choose a custom image as wallpaper. In future, we might see extensions that will bring awesome wallpapers from the web, changing them occasionally for you.

At any time, you can press Ctrl + M to access the desktop

You Can’t place files or links on the desktop. It is good for those who like their desktop clean, and bad for those who manage most of their stuff right from their desktop

Launcher or Taskbar

Chrome OS has a taskbar placed at the bottom of the desktop. It is called the Launcher. The Launcher behaves similar to your windows taskbar. Here is a small list of things you can do from the launcher.

Right click the launcher or anywhere on the desktop to change the position of the launcher. You can place it on the bottom, left or right of the desktop. The option to place it on the top was removed recently.

There is an option to auto hide the launcher as well. Once this selected, the launcher will automatically disappear and will come back only when you place the cursor where it was.

You can pin programs to the launcher. To pin an app to the launcher, right click the app icon on the apps menu and chose Pin to Launcher

Once an app is pinned to the launcher, you can open it using a keyboard shortcut ALT + Number. The first icon on the launcher is the Chrome app which is your browser. Skip this and start counting to call an app. For example, if the Youtube app is the fourth icon on the launcher, you will press ALT + 3 because the first one is Chrome app which is not counted, as I just told you.

Pinned apps will show a white underline if you have the open.

Ash Tray

The bottom right corner of Chrome OS desktop (that’s the default position, unless you have changed the launcher position) is the most useful part of the Chrome OS desktop.

The Ash Tray? Yes because Google calls the Chrome OS desktop “Ash” so the tray is Ash Tray and the launcher is Ash Launcher.